February 16th, 2010
Free is fiscal anarchy. Free in it’s purest form is just bad for business. Free is a poor man’s game and ultimately unsustainable.
You will rarely see free without strings attached, and that’s a good thing. You as the consumer may not directly feel the tradeoff for free but be sure that someone else will. Free for you means someone else has to pay. Free in it’s purest form means the giver has to pay.
Free is a myth. Nothing is truly free. Someone always has to pay. This is a universal law, the law of reciprocation. When you take something from one place to give it to another something must replace where the item originally was. In the physical world when an object is moved air rushes in to fill the void. The same goes for the economic world. Something must eventually fill that void.
Free* is your best friend as a businessman. See the asterisk? That denotes that something must be paid by someone somewhere in order for it to exist. Even when you give your time and energy away to a project most are looking to benefit from their increase in reputation, experience and perceived value.
As a creator of wealth it’s your duty to figure out how free* can best benefit you:
- Start writing a blog and give your knowledge away.
- Create a targeted curated online resource package for your customers that will show them your personal value to them.
- Give personalized customer service and feedback that speaks to each individual on a hypertargeted micro level.
- Give suggestions of other products, services and businesses that may be of relevance. This will also go far if you recommend local businesses or other affiliates in your network.
The free* that you can give that will ingratiate people with you isn’t stuff, it’s you. Giving things only satisfies the right now. When you give of yourself, your knowledge, you end up sharing a piece of yourself that stays with someone much much longer than the one time encounter. People want a story and they want a journey. Give that to them.
Tags: economic world, personal value, purest form, reciprocation, resource package
Posted in business, featured | 4 Comments »
February 13th, 2010
Social media is an amazing medium that has allowed businesses of all kinds to connect with customers in a direct targeted real way. While it’s great it’s not a panacea. Social media isn’t a band-aid.
Social media is only as helpful as you are. What do I mean by this? As an addition that amplifies your original business efforts and customer service it is amazing. Once it starts taking center stage over your original efforts that’s when you run into problems. That’s socialwashing.
The icing on a cake may taste amazing but if the actual cake part is horrendous no one is going to eat it regardless of how tasty the icing is. If your business operations are shoddy and your customer service is flagging there’s only so much social media can do. There’s also only a certain amount of time you have to fool people that everything is alright with your sleight of hand magic tricks.
The danger comes into play when your original supporters – your evangelists – abandon you because you become too obssessed with social media and lose sight of your most important customers needs. It’s a sad day when you as the customer realizes that you must part ways with what has come to be a good friend.
A good friend isn’t someone who ignores their friend’s basic needs and is only cares about fun. That’s a fairweather friend. That’s exactly what socialwashing is.
Tags: business efforts, business is business, fairweather friend, sleight of hand magic tricks, taking center stage
Posted in business, featured, social media | No Comments »
February 10th, 2010
A node is a point where many points meet. While this may seem like a linchpin, a supernode connects seemingly disparate topics and brings those groups together in a new group.
Supernodes can be found in many different areas – people, places and things. One place that’s a supernode is Rice.
Rice is a small chain restaurant in NYC known for their varied dishes. All of the dishes center on – you guessed it – rice. What makes this important is that instead of focusing on the traditional way of dining based on a culture (Italian) or a food (cupcakes) they unify multiple cultures around a single ingredient.
What comes from this is a new and unique experience. Your taste buds are allowed to intermingle many different flavors at once that they may have not been privvy to before. The conversation that’s created around the supernode is priceless. That’s what a supernode does.
A supernode is a trailblazer more often than not. A supernode also may take center stage because of the sheer fact that it is center and a point of congregation. What the supernode does best naturally is act as a conduit for many different streams to converge. It allows the different nodes to be on center stage and come together because it is by nature the center.
So what does all this mean to you? These supernodes are changing reality. We’re all more enriched and emboldened because of them. They turn the impossible into I’m possible.
Tags: flavors, linchpin, sheer fact, supernode, taste buds
Posted in analysis, business, featured, life | No Comments »
February 8th, 2010
We only think of failure as a bad thing when in actuality it couldn’t be better. Failure is what drives us to reinvigorate, reinvent, renew, refresh, restart. The only true failure is if you choose not to try again. Failure is what allows us to take our game to the next level. The only way you can turn failure into a positive experience is if you have a winner’s mindset.
Winning isn’t everything. In fact, it’s only a very small percentage of everything. Winners have to go through a lot of failure before “it” happens. Winners are not made over night; they’re made over many nights.
What do I want to do? Fail hard and fail spectacularly. I’d rather not have my wins come easy to me one after another. Savoring the glorious victory isnt as sweet without the experiencing agony of defeat.
Tags: actuality, agony of defeat, glorious victory, mindset, next level
Posted in business, featured, life | 1 Comment »
January 31st, 2010
Why do people gather? For that matter why does anything gather? To be around like minds?
To not be alone. As much as someone says they want to be alone they don’t. We all need others to define ourselves.
Online and offline you’ll see people gathering naturally:
Chat rooms
Discussion boards
Social networks
Microblogging platforms
Special events
Clubs
Concerts
Museums
These are places where people naturally come together around one centralized topic. If you look closer there are overlapping subtopics that look like many Venn Diagrams overlaid at once. They may have differing opinions and views on what they’re consuming but the one thing that remains constant is what they are there for.
Some ways people gather are apparent while others are more subtle. One thing is for sure – we gather and we gather often.
Tags: clubs concerts, social networks, subtle one, subtopics, venn diagrams
Posted in analysis, business, featured, life | No Comments »
January 31st, 2010
If you thought people would laugh at you before you did something would you do it? Do you think that if you did that’s brave? I do.
There’s a certain amount of chutzpah that a trailblazer needs. Innovators, entrepreneurs, activists, creators – they all regularly put themselves on the line to be critiqued. Why do they allow themselves to be emotionally ripped apart day in an day out? The benefits outweigh the bruises.
If you’re willing to risk humiliation for a huge reward you may just be one of them. Know this: it probably won’t come easy, there will be a lot of heartache but you will gain invaluable experience along the way.
What if Apple gave up at revolutionizing design in computing? Well we’d all have beige boxes and generally uninspiring hardware. Most people wrote Apple off as an “also-ran-as” but they kept forging on. Each one of us has what it takes to be a trailblazer. You just have to be willing to be laughed at.
Tags: beige boxes, chutzpah, heartache, innovators, invaluable experience
Posted in business, featured, life | 2 Comments »
January 31st, 2010
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein started out working in a patent office [1] but clearly didn’t end up known as the best patent clerk in the world (although I can argue he was the most notorious). He changed his routine. He changed his world.
Which brings me to a larger point – everything doesn’t last forever and will ultimately change.
If you’re working at your job and have been for years in the same 9-5 Monday to Friday path look at it on two levels: macro and micro. On the macro level – you haven’t always worked at your job. You were in school. You had hopes and dreams beyond working in an office for a large company. On the micro level – you have new interactions everyday, with a coworker, a business associate, the coffee shop guy, the internet. Nothing you do will EVER give you the same results.
Why did something happen? How did you get to where you are? You ultimately decided to allow it to happen. You may have not forced the circumstances that led up to the decisive moment but you did let it into your life.
On the micro level Albert Einstein is wrong. You can never have the same results. There are too many factors in that moment to make it exactly the same. On the macro level he’s right. If you keep on doing what you’ve been doing the way you’ve always been doing it don’t expect a different outcome.
Change your view. Change the way you approach things. Do you walk the same way every day? Change your routine. Find a new way to get to done. In the very least it’ll make life more interesting. At most it could change your whole life.
*Side note – I’m changing my own routine. All branding and social media articles will be over at http://damienbasile.posterous.com. More general posts about how to ‘get to done’ will be over here from now on. I’ve done this to create clarity and save me time writing so I can use my time more efficiently elsewhere.
Tags: albert einstein, einstein albert, hopes and dreams, patent clerk, patent office
Posted in business, featured, life | 1 Comment »
October 14th, 2009
It’s quite interesting that while Google gives in depth information about many other websites around the world with Google Ad Planner yet it gives no information on its own site. That’s not exactly the case below as we can see Quantcast gives full data on Google.com:
Why doesn’t Google want you to know about their data? Is it because their traffic is flat and has been flat for the last 6 months?:
As you can see below in depth demographics data IS available, just not from Google:
Some quick demographics from Google:
- 67% of users are between 18-49 and is above the Internet average.
- 78% are Caucasian but this is below the Internet average.
- 15% are Asian, Hispanic and Other. This may seem small but their usage of Google is higher than normal.
- 58% make $60K+, so Google’s usage amongst monetary classes is split pretty evenly.
- 58% have attended College and Grad School. What’s interesting here is that as education goes up the concentration of users in the more educated groups goes up as well.
Whatever Google’s reasoning is, the fact of the matter is that their data is out there yet they don’t want you to have it via their tools.
Tags: analysis, business, consumer, consumer demographics, consumers, data, data traffic, demographic data, demographics, depth demographics, gender demographics, Google, google ad planner, internet average, knowledge, marketing, measurement, selling, Value
Posted in analysis, business, featured | 1 Comment »
October 13th, 2009
Most brands in the social media space want to be able to define Social Media Return On Investment (smROI) and for good reason. They’re putting in money to the medium so they should be getting more money out of it ideally. In this respect there is NO difference between traditional and social media measurement. Here’s why:
In both mediums there are intangibles such as word of mouth and message internalization. These two factors are the strongest influencers that your customer will encounter. Generally speaking brands don’t measure the effects of these factors with the exception of the NetPromoter Score .
So why are people freaking out about measuring social media’s effectiveness? One word: money.
Let’s relate smROI back to traditional ROI in advertising. Companies advertise in magazines, newspapers, commercials and all other sorts of media outlets yet there isn’t a particular outlet that will tell them that someone bought their product or service based on advertising. Sure there’s a targeted audience there based on subscribers and media consumer demographics but unless you’re polling people at point of purchase on exactly why they bought your product then you can’t actively tie outreach to purchases. So why do companies invest money into these channels? Because there’s an audience there.
The problem with social media is that the audience isn’t built in like traditional media. You have to build up a following all on your own. Your message is competing for attention along with tons of others. That’s no different than traditional where there are many channels, magazines, newspapers and ads.
What HAS changed are the channels of communication. Instead of big media corporations dictating what the consumer consumes now the power is in the hands of the consumer. Whereas before consumers were able to choose anything within a limited confines now they have almost an unlimited pool to choose from online.
For you as a brand nothing has changed except the venue. Think of your customers as the new big media corporation. They’re deciding the programming, they’re cancelling shows, they’re greenlighting the content and syndicating your show into perpetual prosperity.
In part 2 I’ll go into the different types of measurement you can do in social media to further define smROI for your brand.
Tags: advertising companies, advice, audience, business, channels of communication, commercials, communicating, confines, consumer, consumer demographics, consumers, core values, good reason, influencers, intangibles, interactions, knowledge, marketing, media corporations, media measurement, media outlets, media space, mediums, message internalization, mindshare, NetPromoter, NetPromoter Score, outreach, point of purchase, return on investment, selling, smROI, social media, social media return on investment, social media ROI, Value, venue, word of mouth
Posted in analysis, business, featured, social media | No Comments »
